Q&A with a pro: Wallpapering for your home

For 58 years Gervic Paint & Decorating Center in Middletown has been helping people refresh their living spaces. And color consultant Denise Rutherford has 26 years of experience advising her customers on just the right hue and shade. She recently offered some tips on wallpapering your home.

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By Carol Montana

recordonline.com

By Carol Montana

Posted Apr. 27, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Carol Montana

Posted Apr. 27, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

For 58 years Gervic Paint & Decorating Center in Middletown has been helping people refresh their living spaces. And color consultant Denise Rutherford has 26 years of experience advising her customers on just the right hue and shade. She recently offered some tips on wallpapering your home.

Q. Is wallpapering really something I can do myself?

A. Absolutely. One of our vendors makes an Easy—Match® wall covering. The words "Match Point" are printed on the seams, and when you wipe them down, the words disappear.

Q. What are the different kinds of wallpaper?

A. Non-woven fabric with a vinyl-coated front (similar to Sanatis), which makes it 100 percent strippable (it comes down in one piece), and there's fabric-backed and paper-backed vinyl from the historical era.

Q. Pre-pasted or not? Which is easier?

A. The upside to pasting is you have more time to move it or to put more paste on the wall if it starts drying out. The upside to pre-pasted is you don't have the cost of the paste.

Q. What's "Paste the Wall" paper?

A. You paste the wall and put the dry sheet to the wall, so you don't have to "book" the paper. That's what you do with traditional paper, folding it paste side to paste side, letting it relax, helping the paper get wet, making it easier to apply and smooth out wrinkles.

Q. What's the best time of day to do this? Does humidity matter?

A. If the outside walls are cold, the paper doesn't stick well. And humidity will slow your dry time.

Q. I read you should put a special primer on before you wallpaper.

A. It's called sizing. It's like a Teflon coating and it protects your walls so you can remove the wallpaper more easily.

Q. What's the price range of wallpaper these days?

A. From $25.99 for a single roll all the way up to $189 for one that has glass beads.

Q. How do you help me choose?

A. It's a very personal thing. Wallpapering helps accentuate your personality. We have pattern books, which are classified by rooms into kitchen and bath, country, traditional and contemporary patterns.

Q. How do I figure out how much to buy?

A.The calculation is based on the pattern repeat of the paper you choose.

Q. Any other advice?

A. You need to make sure the scale of the pattern is appropriate for the room size, so you don't wind up with a huge pattern in a tiny room. You won't benefit from too big of a pattern repeat in a small room.